


Day Doctor

by whitchry9



Series: Night Nurse [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Claire Temple, Claire is a queen, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical, Superhero Babysitter Claire Temple, injuries, magic masquerading as medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 01:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8947561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Instead of doing things that she wasn't remotely trained for, Claire gets a doctor to work for the clinic, one who she met through a friend of a friend, because everyone's connected in the superhero world.(She has experience with idiotic superheroes too.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Some spoilers for Doctor Strange, mainly the ending, and basics of the character.
> 
> I made slight adjustments to the previous fic in this series in order for this to work, but they don't affect the plot in any way, so.

Claire met her through a mutual friend, as it seemed that was how she met anyone these days. (Danny. It was Danny, because apparently he knew everyone in New York with magical glowing hand powers.)

It took them a while to meet up because they were both dealing with disasters, and in Claire's case they usually answered to Barton.

 

But Claire Temple and Christine Palmer finally met up for coffee about three weeks after the strange men in robes kept appearing out of thin air in New York, London, and Hong Kong. Claire didn't have to deal with any of that, thank god, and it might have been because Christine did, the man Danny knew with glowing hands showing up directly in a cleaning cupboard of Metro General.

(Christine still seemed convinced he was in a cult, despite the weird shit he could do. Claire had to admit that magic and cults weren't mutually exclusive, as far as she could tell.)

 

Despite working at the same hospital for a number of years, Claire and Christine hadn't really worked together. Claire had mostly been in the ER, where Christine had focused on surgery. Without knowing each other beforehand, they still managed to hit it off, Christine regaling Claire with the ridiculous story.

“And then all of a sudden he appears in front of me, even though he's still unconscious on the table, the bastard, and tells me to move the needle up. Like, thank you Stephen, I have done this before you know.”

“Wait,” Claire interrupted. “Stephen? Stephen Strange?”

Christine nodded.

Claire had heard about him, of course, nearly everyone at Metro General had, the brilliant and arrogant neurosurgeon who'd lost most of the function in his hands after a car accident. Claire hadn't been working when he was brought in, but she had colleagues who were.

The man had multiple surgeries to try and restore function, but none of them worked, and eventually he disappeared. There were rumours, because there always were, but nothing concrete, and this was the first Claire was hearing anything about him from someone who actually knew him.

“He's the one who has the magic?” Claire asked. She was skeptical. From what she knew of Strange, the man wouldn't know mystic if it bit him on the ass.

“That's what he says.” She frowned. “I think. It was a confusing day.”

“Did he fix his hands?” Claire asked, leaning in closer over their half finished coffee. “I mean, I assume that's what he was trying to do.”

“I don't think so. He showed up again later, with a woman he seemed to be close to, but couldn't hold a scalpel steady. Could have been nerves, but I think it was still the damage. She didn't make it.”

Claire nodded.

 

“So what about you?” Christine asked, changing the subject. “What are you up to now? Stephen apparently knows Danny Rand, which kind of surprises me, but honestly probably shouldn't, and he seems to know you and thought we should talk.”

Claire huffed a laugh. “Of course he did. Well, after the ninja thing at the hospital, and I still can't believe I'm saying that with a straight face, I quit, and Danny set me up with a clinic. It's sort of a… specialized thing, I guess you could say, for the superheroes and vigilantes of New York. He funds it, I work there, sometimes other people help out, but it's mostly me.”

“And Danny thought that I might be interested,” Christine finished.

Claire shrugged. “Does anyone know what that man thinks?”

“Good point,” Christine agreed.

“Well, are you?” Claire asked, and had to wait for her response until after the waiter refilled their coffees.

“God yes,” Christine grinned.

 

* * *

 

It's ridiculous how much easier things are with an actual doctor on staff. Instead of Claire worrying about the procedures she was never actually trained to do, Christine does them with ease, Claire assisting and reassuring patients.

 

The first time Claire showed her the clinic, Christine spent nearly five minutes staring at the sign in the waiting room.

“You never really worked in the ER, did you?” Claire asked wryly, seeing her shocked expression.

Christine shook her head.

“This would be a lot less surprising if you had,” Claire told her, letting her draw her own conclusions.

Christine's eyes just widened.

 

Christine looked through Claire's supplies and had a few recommendations for things they might need, like intubation equipment, IO needles, and surgical trays.

“As long as we're doing this, we may as well do it right,” she said, and Claire didn't miss the glimmer of excitement in her eyes.

 

* * *

 

One day not long after Christine started, a glowing portal opened up in the middle of the reception area and a man in robes fell through. Before the glow faded, Claire could see part of a sweeping skyline in the background, lit up by a rising or setting sun. Definitely not New York, since it was around 2am.

“Christine,” Claire yelled, running to the man's side. It was Stephen, she was sure of it, because who else would show up in their clinic like that. The glowing faded to sparks that fell to the ground, and she wasn't sure if they were hot or just bright, but she didn't want to risk it, and avoided them as she snapped on gloves and placed two fingers to his carotid. Pulse was present.

He didn't seem to be breathing though, and that was about all she got before Christine skidded up behind them.

“Stephen?” she gasped. “Jesus, this is too soon to be doing this again.”

“We've got to get him on a gurney,” Claire told her, still not feeling any breathing. She swore as the man's body started to hover in the air, the cape seemingly holding him up. “Oh that is too much,” she muttered, but he drifted to a nearby gurney and sank onto it.

“The cloak,” Christine told her, already rushing to his side. “It's sentient, I think.”

“Great,” Claire muttered. “I don't think he's breathing, but I felt a pulse.”

They got him to their largest treatment room, the one that was probably closest to a trauma room that they had, and Christine started sticking a pulse ox on his finger and electrodes on his chest as Claire set up an ambu bag to manually pump air into his lungs.

“Sats are in the eighties,” Christine announced, silencing an alarm that immediately started sounding. “Sinus rhythm, rate of 90. I'm going to start a line. You keep bagging him, and if he doesn't have any respiratory effort after his sats improve, I may have to intubate.”

Claire nodded.

 

After less than a minute, Christine had a line in and Stephen's oxygen saturations were in the mid 90s.

It was then that the man appeared on her left. She managed not to scream, but only just. Christine did though, and it was loud and piercing.

“What the shit?” Claire yelled. The man was definitely still on the gurney, unmoving and unconscious, but there he was right beside his body too.

“What did I tell you about doing that?” Christine hissed at him.

“...not to?” Stephen said.

She huffed at him.

“Can I get an update on what's happening?” Claire asked, still squeezing the bag in her hand, albeit more weakly.

“Astral body,” Stephen told her.

“Of course,” she muttered, poking the man's real face to see if his astral body reacted. It didn't.

“Do you know what's wrong?” Christine asked him.

“Ah, some sort of magic. It acts similar to a paralytic, like vecuronium. I'm hopeful that the effects and timeline are similar. I passed out from the hypoxia, but once you started breathing for me, I regained consciousness and was able to project my astral form,” he said, like it was just another Tuesday for him. Hell, maybe it was, Claire wouldn't know.

“Wait, you're conscious?” Christine asked.

Stephen's not real body nodded. “Locked in though, of course, so not entirely pleasant.”

Christine sighed. “I guess I'll intubate you then, since there's no telling how long this could take to wear off. Good thing I got the intubation supplies, huh?” she said to Claire. “And you,” she directed to Stephen, “If you backseat doctor me I will let you pass out again just so I can get some peace and quiet.” She narrowed her eyes. “Got it?”

Stephen held his hands up in a placating manner. Claire was liking Christine more and more.

Christine sighed. “I'll get the stuff. 8.0 ET tube?” she asked Stephen.

He nodded. “That should do it.”

He drifted after her as she went to the supply closet that was next to the trauma room.

“I am sorry about this,” he apologized on his way by, and Claire poked his cheek again. Still no response or indication that the other Stephen felt it. Weird.

 

Christine returned with the supplies and Stephen in tow, hovering behind her, the air surrounding him looking like broken shards of glass, as if he'd had to break through to this reality.

Christine waited until Stephen's sats were up to 100% before she asked Claire to move aside so she could put the blade of the laryngoscope into Stephen's mouth to visualize his vocal cords before slipping the ET tube between them.

“Nicely done,” Stephen complimented as she inflated the balloon holding the tube in place. Claire began squeezing the bag again, this time connected to the tube instead of having to hold the mask on his face. “I can see it in place, but you might want to get an x-ray just to double check.”

At Christine's narrowed gaze he held his hands up again. “Or not, whatever you decide.”

“I will, but not because you told me to,” Christine retorted. “You okay here for a minute Claire while I grab the portable scanner and a vent?” Claire nodded, and Christine disappeared down the hall, this time Stephen staying, perhaps to watch over his body.

“Your other vital signs are good,” Claire told him, like he couldn't see the monitor himself. Making conversation, she supposed. “This sort of thing happen to you often?”

Stephen smirked. “Not this exactly, no, but I have been more... accident prone, of late,” he admitted.

She followed his gaze to find it resting on his hands, the scars clearly visible, but not shaking. The paralytics affected everything, after all.

“Yeah, you and everyone else I seem to know,” Claire said, smiling slightly.

Christine returned with the ventilator, pulling it behind her. “I think I'm going to need a hand with the portable x-ray,” she said, apologizing. “I figure once he's on the ventilator we can both get it. It's kind of packed away snugly,” she explained.

“Right,” Claire remembered. Luke had put it away after they'd x-rayed Matt's leg the week before. It wasn't broken, lucky for him, but Luke had still been pissed about the way Matt had taken unnecessary risks. “We're probably lucky it's not broken,” she added.

 

Christine programmed the settings on the ventilator and hooked the tubing up. They waited a moment to make sure nothing awful happened, and once they were satisfied Stephen wasn't going to die in the immediate future, set off to the storage room to extract the x-ray machine, leaving Stephen to babysit his body.

Claire was having a weirder than usual day.

 

* * *

 

The film showed that the tube was indeed in the correct place, and after that there wasn't much to do except wait for the magic to wear off, apparently. Stephen hung around in his astral form for most of the time, explaining that it took too much energy to wander far from his body. And Claire understood why he wouldn't want to be in it, trapped and unable to move or breathe. She shuddered at the thought.

Christine left to suture up Frank Castle's face (for what was the third time that month) and left Claire sitting with Stephen. He entertained them by telling her about Wong, the man who apparently oversaw the library where he learned magic, and all the things he tried to do to get the man to laugh. Apparently all it took was a near death experience to set the man on edge, and a joke that wasn't actually that amusing.

Despite herself, Claire kind of liked him, a charming asshole that knew he was. He apologized again for scaring her, both by falling into their reception area and by popping up next to them like some weird ghost. (Claire wondered if ghosts were a thing.)

Claire waved it off. “Believe me, that isn't the weirdest thing I've had happen to me. Up there, for sure, but not the weirdest.”

Stephen grinned. “What was?”

Claire considered that.

“Ninjas, probably. One of the times. Yes, there's been more than one,” she added as soon as Stephen started to open his mouth to ask. “What about you?” she countered.

“Oh, definitely bargaining with some god like figure in another dimension,” he said immediately. “For sure.”

Claire only blinked at him.

He told her that story, and at the end of it, he froze. “I think there might be... Be right back,” he told her, then disappeared.

“Oh great,” she muttered.

On the bed, Stephen twitched.

“Oh,” Claire said. She got to her feet. “Can you open your eyes Stephen?” she asked. His eyelids fluttered a bit, but didn't quite make it to open.

“That's fine,” she told him. “We've got time.”

He emerged again, looking disappointed.

“It's fine,” she assured him, just in case he hadn't heard her the first time. “We can try again in a bit.”

 

Ten minutes later, they tried again, and ten minutes after that, and ten minutes after that. He was able to open his eyes and move his hands, but not much beyond that, and neither Claire or Christine wanted to extubate him before he could entirely breathe on his own. It was another hour after that before they were confident in his ability to not die, and Christine removed the tube.

He was still weak and unable to hold himself up without the help of his sentient cloak, but he was doing miles better than when he fell through the portal into their office.

 

They got him a juice box and a snack and Claire went through the basic form she'd started for everyone's chart.

“Allergies?”

“None.”

“Medications?”

“None.”

“Medical history?”

“Oh boy.”

Claire looked up at him to find him with one eyebrow raised and a mischievous look on his face.

“Extensive?” Claire asked.

“Yep. Although no medical conditions, just an extensive surgical and trauma history.”

“That's good enough for now. It's mostly so we can find out if someone is say, diabetic,” Claire explained. “We don't actually need detailed records.” Just the important things, like how Daredevil was blind and how Hawkeye was profoundly deaf without his hearing aids and how some of her patients weren't entirely human. Or remotely human, in a few cases.

They determined an MRI would not be a good idea for him, and went through a few other things before Claire was happy with the file.

 

Claire didn't miss the way Stephen looked down at his hands as they trembled, and when he saw her looking, tightened them into a fist.

She smiled at him and pretended she hadn't seen.

 

* * *

 

 

Christine took Stephen home after they were both confident he wasn't about to die, and Claire thought there might have been something between them, but it wasn't her place to ask or assume.

She checked all the exam rooms supplies, made a note that they were running out of suture kits (and really, did Frank strictly need to do whatever it was that caused him to get facial lacerations?), and filed Strange, Stephen on the shelf with the others. Then she headed to the office to nap for a few hours. Christine would be back for the day shift, and unless she was needed, Claire would go home until the night shift again.

 

It was nice not being alone.

 


End file.
